BEL AIR, Md. — It spread like wildfire. Minutes after a single shot was fired inside Joppatowne High School on Friday, people started posting that there was an active shooter. That's what they heard on the police scanner, because that's how it was initially dispatched out. Police quickly learned it was an isolated incident that stemmed from a fight between two students.
"Putting out an active shooter right away, everyone who shared that got it wrong, and scared our community," Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler told WMAR-2 News in an interview Thursday.
It's why journalists don't report what they hear on police scanners. We wait for official confirmation from police.
Now, for better or for worse, everyone else will have to as well.
As of Tuesday morning, Harford County's police scanners have gone quiet. The sheriff's office made the announcement this week that it's switching to encrypted communication channels.
Sheriff Gahler says the move has been in the works for more than a year, and was not done in response to any particular incident. But he did point to recent emergencies where the open airwaves created problems.
"We've had members of the public, not intentionally, but unwittingly, sharing tactical information," Gahler recalled, citing the February 2023 manhunt in Fallston, when police searched for a suspect who shot two police officers.
"And had this individual been listening, we didn't know at the time, he's listening to real-time information considering the deputies' deployment and where they are in the woods surrounding him and how we're responding to that incident. That is not safe for our personnel," Gahler said. "We know that there are suspects indeed who listen to police scanners just for that reason, to see about the response, to see about ETAs."
Or in the Rachel Morin murder case - details from the crime scene, heard over the radio, were quickly shared to social media. The sheriff says that not only jeopardized the investigation but subjected the victim's friends and family to distressing content.
But Sheriff Gahler says the main reason for the switch is to comply with state and federal law, specifically the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Security Policy.
"A lot of the information that takes place and is routinely and regularly transmitted, particularly in a large-scale incident, is stuff that is protected by the federal government - medical information, personally identifiable information. These things aren’t allowed to be released in any way, shape, or form or fashion, and that includes over the radio airwaves."
That also includes information about juvenile suspects.
"So if one of our deputies interacts with a group and five names are put out with dates of birth across the air, that’s all information that cannot be released under Maryland law," Gahler said.
Reaction to the announcement has been mixed on the Harford County Sheriff's Office Facebook page. Some praised the sheriff's office for prioritizing safety and privacy, while others were upset that they won't have access to real-time updates during an emergency.
"There’s no way you can be immediate and accurate. You can’t have both. So people want to know and everyone tries to meet that need; we try to be as timely as we can," Gahler told WMAR-2 News.
Some suggested the deputies switch back and forth between open and encrypted channels, when necessary. Others suggested a timed encryption, which would result in a delay, like the Baltimore City Police Department does.
Sheriff Gahler responded to both of those suggestions:
"I don’t think it’s a safe thing for every deputy to be constantly - to have the awareness of, this is something that’s not allowed to go out over the air so I need to switch over. It’s not safe to be switching that many times. They need to be focused on doing the service and answering the call the citizens need, not whether I can say this on the air or not."
"Well, the delay doesn’t allow us to be in compliance with the law unless we have somebody there able to immediately redact what’s going out over the air. So the encryption is the answer, maybe technology will evolve to where something else could be done in the future."
Baltimore City Police last year implemented a timed encryption of its emergency communications channel. "The 15-minute delay of the radio broadcast follows national best practice recommendations," a press release from BPD reads, adding that this balances transparency with officer safety.
Ocean City Police transitioned to encrypted radio transmissions in March. Anne Arundel County will begin encrypting its police transmissions in October. Baltimore County Police does not encrypt its radio transmissions.
